Posts from February 2007

February 28, 2007

The successful Broadway revival of A Chorus Linerecently recouped its initial $8 million investment after 19 weeks. That's a relatively brief time period, made possible by the show's comparatively modest capitalization. Typical Broadway musicals come in at over $10 million. Witness the following:

Of course, A Chorus Line is a much smaller show than these, due mostly to its spare production design and casting requirements. The producers plan to take the show on tour starting in the spring of 2008.

As I mentioned in my review, I found the "revival" thoroughly professional but uninspired. It's not really a revival at all, but rather a re-staging of the original production. Bob Avian has merely placed the actors where he remembers them being in the original, and neglected to coax three-dimensional performances out of the cast. The performers are more than competent, to be sure, yet there's something a bit bloodless about the proceedings. But the new production does stand as a testament to the quality of the piece itself.

I have to admit that I was wrong in predicting that it was too early to revive both A Chorus Line and Les Miserables, at least from an economic perspective. Both seem to be doing quite well at the box office, thank you. So, it's probably a good thing that I'm not the one making these decisions.

I heartily concur on all fronts. As I mentioned in my review, the production was not only visually dazzling, but it also had sharp direction and superb performances. It's interesting to note that Sunday essentially shut out the well received (and deservedly so) revival of Evita, as well as its able stars, Elena Rogers and Philip Quast.

On the heels of Sunday'sbig wins at the Olivier's comes confirmation of the show's long-rumored Broadway transfer. The Roundabout Theater will present the show at Studio 54. No word yet on whether Evans and Russell will repeat their award-winning performances. I truly hope that they do: both were simply marvelous, and imbued the show with a sense of yearning and raw emotion that was missing in the original Broadway production.

Whoever the stars are, I highly recommend this production of Sunday. Sure, the visuals are dazzling: the set essentially comprises digital projections of Seurat's works as it progresses to its final form. But Sam Buntrock's direction breathes new life into this timeless show. I'll certainly be seeing it again.

February 26, 2007

As many had expected, Jennifer Hudson won the Academy Award last night for best supporting actress in her film debut, Dreamgirls.

Hudson kicked some major butt in the movie, although I wasn't entirely convinced that the performance was Oscar-worthy. Let's just hope that her cinematic future turns out to be more promising that those of the following best supporting actress winners:

Because of the above list, many consider the best supporting actress award to be cursed. I don't believe in curses. What these people conveniently ignore are the following best supporting actress winners:

No ill effects there. Of course, Jennifer Hudson won the award for her film debut, without the luxury of having first built up a creditable body of work. It will be very interesting to see whether her performance represents an auspicious start to a promising career or...well..."One Night Only."

February 15, 2007

I'm a huge Monty Python fan. A fanatic, in fact. I have every book, every CD, every DVD available by and about the Pythons. So I was particularly thrilled when I first heard about Spamalot, a musical version of the troupe's classic film, "Monty Python and The Holy Grail." An artistic marriage of my two great obsessions: Python and musical theater. What could be better?

Well, I certainly had fun when I saw Spamalot. A lot of fun. But I was disappointed in the quality of the score. The book was flat out hysterical, the direction was spot-on, but the music and lyrics were a bit pedestrian. It's the sort of score that goes down reasonably well in the theater, but doesn't hold up upon repeated listening.

Anyway, now comes news that Spamalot creators Eric Idle and John Du Prez are working on a "light-hearted oratorio" based on another Python masterpiece, The Life of Brian. The pair are collaborating with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the music director of which is Eric Idle's cousin. The work is called Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy).

I must say, I'd be a whole lot more excited about this venture if I liked the score to Spamalot. I wish Idle and Du Prez the best in their collaboration, but I can't see myself flying up to Toronto to take the piece in. Of course, if the work eventually turns into a Broadway musical, I'll certainly see it. But my expectations will be somewhat lessened by experience.

February 14, 2007

I've never been a big fan of the orgy of self-congratulation that is the Grammy Awards. Of course, all artistic "awards" are fatuous and artificial, even my beloved Tony's, but the Grammy Awards are especially meaningless to me, mostly because I simply don't follow popular music. I don't listen to music on the radio and I only buy Broadway CDs.

But even if I had more eclectic tastes in music, the Grammy Awards would still seem pointless. What are there, like 1,000 categories? Exactly how many polka CDs are released every year? Winning a Grammy seems about as hard as getting a medal at the Special Olympics. Everyone's a winner!

Which brings me to Jersey Boys, which won best original cast recording at this year's Grammy awards, over such worthy competition as Sweeney Todd, The Pajama Game, The Drowsy Chaperone, and The Color Purple. Of course Jersey Boys won. The Grammy voters were essentially congratulating popular music for co-opting Broadway in the form of the wretched jukebox musical.

Past winners of the original cast album Grammy include Smokey Joe's Cafe, The Who's Tommy, Aida, and [shudder] Riverdance. So the Grammy is hardly a referendum of the best music that Broadway has to offer. I mean, Grey Gardens wasn't even nominated. How meaningful can a Grammy really be?

February 13, 2007

I mentioned it here about three months ago, but now it's official: the glorious Grey Gardens will receive a Broadway cast recording, in addition to the show's previously released Off Broadway CD. The new version of the show will be recorded this week and released sometime in March.

As anyone who's both seen the show and heard the disc can attest, the two versions are considerably different. The following songs have been cut from the current production: "Toyland," "Body Beautiful Beale," "Better Fall Out of Love," "Being Bouvier," "Mrs. Porter's Anthem," and "Tomorrow's Woman." And the following songs have been added: "The Girl Who Has Everything," "Goin' Places," and "Marry Well."

The two recordings will offer students of the musical theater form a rare chance to compare professionally produced versions of a show a two different stages of its development. (Of course, there are pirated recordings out there, but the fine upstanding readers of my blog would never stoop so low, right, guys? Right, guys?)

For example, one reason the song "Body Beautiful Beale" was presumably cut was to make the revelation of Little Edie's whaddayacallit...her sobriquet...one of the reasons that the dashing young Joe Kennedy decides to cut off their engagement. It gives the decision more dramatic weight, and the song itself, while pleasant, is hardly indispensable.

I wonder whether the recording producers will re-record the songs that have remained relatively unchanged, such as "Another Winter in a Summer Town." Or maybe they'll opt to do what other producers have done and just record the new stuff (cf. the London Company will Larry Kert). My hope is that they'll re-record the entire show so that we can have another version of Christine Ebersole's stunning performance.

February 09, 2007

In the past few weeks, I've blogged about American Idol a couple of times. Two weeks ago I discussed the American Idol effect on Broadway. And earlier this week I mentioned that American Idol runner up Constantine Maroulis hasn't exactly been the box-office boon that the producers of The Wedding Singer and Jacques Brel had hoped for.

Well, both times my traffic went through the roof. The Maroulis post lifted visits to my blog some 600%. The earlier post had a similarly buoyant effect. Not only did I get more visits, I got more comments, more links to my blog, and more hate mail. (God forbid you say anything even remotely negative about their collective raison d'etre. Some AI fans need to take a trip to the "life" store and ask for extra large.)

Now, I'm not the kind of person to take advantage of this sort of thing. Nope, not me. Just because people are out there searching for "Katherine McPhee" and "Constantine Maroulis" and "Diana Degarmo" every day of their lives, that doesn't mean that I'm going to pander to that set just to raise my site traffic. I mean, I could continue to mention names like Josh Strickland, Amy Adams, and Frenchie Davis on a regular basis, and it would likely lift my visitor stats, but I'm above that sort of thing. Just because there are a lot of people out there doing searches for such American Idol faves as Jennifer Hudson and Anthony Federov, that doesn't mean I have to stoop to throwing them into my text just to get some cheap hits.

Oh, and speaking of Anthony Federov, he's about to join the Off Broadway cast of The Fantasticks, stepping into the lead part of Matt. The AI effect continues. But again, I'm not going to lower myself to mentioning his name simply for the purpose of attracting more readers to my blog.

February 07, 2007

Winter plays havoc with Broadway box-office numbers. That's why producers often decide to close their ailing shows after the Christmas season rather than risk losing even more money in January and February. (cf. The Wedding Singer, Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me)

Those shows that do tough it out often find it pretty rough going. The Broadway grosses for last week are a perfect example. (I love checking the grosses at BroadwayWorld.com because they let you sort the data in a number of cool and illuminating ways.) The only show that sold out was Jersey Boys. Wicked played to 96.4% capacity, which is still pretty damned good. But there were certainly some previously hot tickets that were no doubt available at TKTS last week:

But there was some good news, too. Some of the best received smaller shows of the last few seasons (which I affectionately refer to as "The Little Shows That Could") were playing to houses of perfectly respectable size:

This speaks well to the future health of these deserving shows: if they can still attract audiences in the chilly days of winter, then they will likely see even more healthy business come the spring thaw.

One key exception in the "Little Show" category was the revival of Company, which played to an anemic 53.3%. Perhaps word is getting around that the production is clever but a bit bloodless.

The bottom line for musical fans: now is a great time to see some terrific shows. Over the next few weeks, you'll likely be able to score a ticket to practically any show in New York. My next New York City jaunt will be in March, and I'll be taking in The Pirate Queen and Curtains. Be sure to check back here for my reviews.

February 06, 2007

Towards the end of last year, the producers of The Wedding Singer brought in "American Idol" runner-up Constantine Maroulis in the hopes that his moderate acclaim would help ticket sales. It didn't.

Maroulis also recently joined the cast of the Off Broadway revival of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. Presumably, the motive was similar: get the butts in the seats with a supposed box-office draw.

Again: didn't happen. Jacques Brel will close February 25th, having played 384 performances.

I've never seen Maroulis perform. And his time at the Boston Conservatory pre-dated mine, so I never had him as a student. But I think this double shot of stunt casting -- and the fact that it didn't work either time -- says more about the fleeting nature of fame than it does about Maroulis's performing abilities.

February 02, 2007

Each semester, I ask my Boston Conservatory students to write down the three best musicals ever, and we tally the results. Then we talk about what makes these shows great, which segues nicely into a number of different themes that my course emphasizes.

Here are the shows that came up more than once this semester:

13 Sweeney Todd7 West Side Story 7 Les Miserables5 Cabaret5 Into the Woods5 The Sound of Music4 Show Boat 3 Carousel 3 Ragtime2 Candide2 Hello Dolly2 Kiss Me Kate2 The Last Five Years 2 The Light in the Piazza2 Oklahoma!

I find it very interesting that Show Boat came up four times. Typically, Show Boat doesn't come up at all, and I have to wait until my 1920s unit to convince them all of this seminal nature of this groundbreaking show.

The Sound of Music almost always rears its regressive little head, but usually not five times. A few of my students are no doubt in for an unpleasant surprise when I attempt to demonstrate to them why SOM is not a very good show, although the movie is admittedly a significant improvement.

Here are the shows that only came up once:

Aida, Annie, Anyone Can Whistle, Assassins, Big River, Caroline or Change, The Color Purple, Company, Crazy for You, Evita, Follies, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Gypsy, The King and I, Me and My Girl, Miss Saigon, The Music Man, Parade, The Secret Garden, See What I Wanna See, Sunday in the Park with George, Wicked

A lot of the usual suspects, but a few interesting selections, which I've placed in bold. Parade and Caroline have come up before, and rightly so, since they are very worthy shows. But this is the first time Color Purple has made the list. Probably the most interesting addition this semester is See What I Wanna See, which I haven't seen yet, but which I hope to catch during its run at Boston's Lyric Stage.

So it's great to see stalwarts like Sweeney Todd and West Side Story show up time and again. But it's also good to know that there are new shows that are making an impression on the theater queens of tomorrow. Because the shows create the queens, and vice versa.